Judging
by Paloma Plata
Summary: I'm trying to rewrite Harry Potter’s 4th year, from a different POV. What really made me write this is the way so many H. P. fanfics make Hermione a disgusting romance-obsessed girl (as Beth would say, a slut) and Draco the cool, handsome villain.
1. One

H.A.R.R.Y

"Hurry up!" Ron groaned, turning to look back at his friends.

"We're trying, we're trying," Harry wheezed, clutching his side.

"You do realize that if we miss this year's Sorting, it will be the third time in a row for us, and the second time for Ron?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"I know," he replied, attempting to catch up to Ron. After quite a bit of huffing and puffing, they reached the great doors together. Tiptoeing in softly, the heard the Sorting Hat sing the last words to its Song.

"...is true!"

"Whew," the girl breathed, sliding next to her friends. "We_ didn't _miss anything yet."

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward. "Abdul, Zainab." Her voice rang through the Great Hall clearly, and a fidgety, slightly plump girl with frizzy locks perched the Hat on her head. A few moments later:

"Ravenclaw!" The other Ravenclaws applauded, and an older girl immediately started whispering in her ear, pointing out various people and places.

Taking a look at the long line of first-years still waiting to be Sorted, Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Were there that many of us when we first came?" he asked with a frown.

"Dunno," said Ron in a low voice. "But you're right. There's a lot of them, isn't there? I'm not sitting through all those names. I mean, I don't think we know anybody in that line."

The other scanned the crowd of nervous-looking children, and shook his head. "Nope, I don't think so either."

"Exactly. We better keep our voices down if we want to talk, though."

Harry thought this was a good idea, but Hermione gave a disapproving sniff, and kept her eyes focused on the stool. Luckily, she made no attempt to stop her friends from whispering to each other.

Just as he was about to tell Ron about another of Dudley's exploits over the summer, she gave an unusually giggle-like laugh. Both boys whipped their heads around to look where she was looking, but neither laughed.

"What's so funny?" Ron inquired, confused. "You don't usually giggle at funny-looking people. Well, you don't usually giggle at all, but..."

"Her name," Hermione told them between chuckles, "is Cordelianne Andrews." And Harry had to admit that the long-limbed girl striding toward the Sorting Hat looked nothing like a Cordelianne.

She was very brown. Her hair, tied away from her face in a ponytail, was smooth and brown. Her skin, tanned probably from hours and hours outdoors, was brown. Her eyes, darting around the Great Hall curiously, were deep brown. Since he couldn't really bring himself to call her Cordelianne without laughing, he called her the Brown Girl in his thoughts.

The Brown Girl wasn't fat, but more wiry than slender. This combined with the length of her arms, legs, and fingers (and most likely toes too) made her look a bit like a big Brown spider. Black robes seemed very out of place hanging on her body, and Harry imagined that pants and a t-shirt would be more like it.

The Hat had no sooner settled on her brown hair than it called out assuredly, "Gryffindor!"

Putting it back with a smile, she covered the ground between the stool and the Gryffindor table in only a few steps.

"Hello!" she greeted them as soon as she was within earshot. "I'm Ath—I mean, I'm Cordelianne Andrews, but call me Athena if you aren't out to annoy me, please."

Seamus turned his laugh into a cough. Athena looked at him with mild interest.

"It's my middle name. My mother had quite an imagination, and she gave me that name, but my grandmother made me Cordelianne." Now she addressed them all. "So who would you be?" She stared at them each very pointedly. So they really had no choice.

"Seamus Finnigan."

"Lavender Brown"

"Ginny Weasley."

"Dennis Creevey!" Dennis shouted enthusiastically, receiving a chilling glare from Professor McGonagall.

"Ron Weasley."

"Oh. Hi," she replied, then nodded at Harry. "_You_ must be Harry Potter, then. I've heard of you."

He nodded. What else could he do?

"Hi, Harry. Can I sit here?" She indicated the empty chair next to Hermione.

"Of course," she answered, measuring the first-year with her eyes. When Athena had seated herself, Hermione went on. "Did you know that your middle name indicates the same goddess in the Greek/Roman pantheon as Professor McGonagall's first name?"

Athena widened her eyes and looked past the older girl, who turned around but saw nothing. "Her name's Minerva, then," she stated.

"Yes," Hermione replied. "It is. Interesting coincidence, isn't it?" The Brown Girl nodded politely, but it was clear that she wasn't really interested. Then they both returned to watching the Sorting. A bit later, she remarked, "Goodness! How unusual."

Harry and Ron twisted around from their muttered conversation. Athena pointed; Hermione was too polite to. "That's John Miller," she told them. "He looks very normal, doesn't he?"

Although he wouldn't have used 'normal' to describe the boy sitting on the stool, Harry had to agree with her. John Miller was so ordinary—as a person and as a name—that he was quite a rarity. He turned out to be a Hufflepuff.

"Why do they have to take so long with the Sorting?" Ron complained, his stomach rumbling.

"No idea." His friend shrugged. "It's probably a tradition or something."

"So anyway, how does that tell a vision thingy work again?" Harry grinned and explained in a whisper.

"You take a remote control, and—"

"What's a remote control again?"

"A flat thing you hold that controls the television."

"Oh, like a wand?"

Harry fought not to laugh. "Yeah, sort of."

"Oh."

"Right. So you press the 'Power' button, and the television turns on."

"Where's the 'Power' button?"

"On the remote control."

"Oh."

"And see, if you don't like the program they're showing, you can just change channels by—"

"Wait, wait. Channel? What does a channel have to do with tell a visions?"

"Umm...a channel is a sort of, umm, umm..." Luckily, he was spared the ordeal of answering his friend's question by Hermione nudging him in the ribs. "Ow!" he gasped, just managing to keep his voice down. "What was that for?"

"Look up," she hissed, barely moving her lips. He did. Dumbledore was looking straight at him, a warning in those clear blue eyes. Harry gulped, poked Ron, and started actually paying attention to the Sorting. It was hard to concentrate on a crowd of random little kids doing the same thing over and over.

"Georges, Walter." A boy who reminded Harry of Dudley waddled forward, a sneer etched on his pimply face. He looked like a younger, darker-haired, morbidly obese version of Draco Malfoy. Just as he thought, Walter Georges was Sorted into Slytherin.

"Gong, Yu-Ling!" A Chinese girl seated herself on the stool, half-hiding her nervousness. Just a few moments ago, she had looked more absentminded than nervous. After almost a minute, the Hat cried:

"Gryffindor!" Yu-Ling relaxed, lapsing back into her former dreamy mode, as she found a chair for herself.

Sneaking a peek at Dumbledore, Ron punched Harry's arm in a comradely manner. "Psst! Dumbledore's not looking." The other was reluctant to disobey Hogwart's headmaster for many reasons, but it was just a Sorting. He only paid attention when Hermione giggled again. _Twice in one evening!_ Harry thought, amazed, as he looked at the stool again.

A very large boy who could be classified as "plump," although nowhere near Dudley or Walter Georges' girth, had slipped the Sorting Hat on his head. And nearly as soon as he had it properly settled, the Hat announced, "Hufflepuff!"

Professor McGonagall laid her scroll aside and picked up another. "Nakamura, Mizuki!"

Everybody craned their necks so they could actually _see_ the small, frail-looking wisp of a Japanese girl make her way to the Sorting Hat. When she put it on, it fell to her shoulders. Then they waited, and waited, and waited. People began to talk quietly amongst themselves, looking at watches and tapping their feet softly. When more than six minutes had passed and even Professor McGonagall was letting her impatience show, the Hat decided.

"Slytherin!" it called. There was a surprised murmuring.

"Well, you never do know, do you," Ron remarked.

"Slytherins aren't necessarily evil," Hermione reminded them fairly. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, and Harry looked unsure.

"But—" the boys began together.

"But nothing," she said briskly. "Put in very broad terms: All Death Eaters are Slytherins, but not all Slytherins are Death Eaters." Ron merely groaned and rolled his eyes. What seemed like a million names later, a spectacular feast appeared on their plates.


	2. Two

MIZUKI

Mizuki felt the Sorting Hat gently nudging apart the walls she had set to block would-be priers from accessing her thoughts, felt it searching through her innermost feelings. If she had wanted to, she could have listened to the Hat's words to itself as it rummaged in her mind. However, she chose to concentrate on breathing evenly and holding perfectly still, so she only heard a few scattered phrases.

"...about Hufflepuff? Definitely not..." And: "Ravenclaw...Slytherin...Gryffindor..." When the Sorting Hat finally proclaimed, "Slytherin!" to the entire school, she was slightly surprised, but nobody would have known that from the calm front she presented. Lifting the Hat off of her shoulders—it was much, much too big for her—she rose from the stool, returned the Hat, and walked soundlessly to the Slytherin table.

"Hello," a sallow-looking older girl to her right simpered. "Welcome to Slytherin."

She gazed back at the girl, letting no emotion show through. If you let others know, they could hurt you with that knowledge. "You are?"

"Pansy Parkinson. You'll see soon enough—the other houses just can't compare with us Slytherins."

"If you say so," Mizuki replied, then turned away, training her eyes on the tall teacher who was calling out names. It took two scrolls and an eternity of time to finish the Sorting.

The last one to be sorted was a hulking boy who was so edgy that everyone could see his shaking, then Dumbledore stood up and announced, "I am sure that you have had an excellent time over the summer forgetting about school, but I am also quite sure that you will lean it all back, with some extra, very quickly. Now, I must not prolong your wait: Enjoy the feast." He sat back down as a magnificently prepared banquet materialized.

Mizuki wasn't very hungry, since her foster mother had packed an enormous lunch for her. In fact, she hadn't even finished her lunch yet. However, as she had put it back in her trunk when she could eat no more, it was impossible to finish it now. She had just begun to poke her food cautiously when a drawling voice floated over her shoulder.

"New Slytherin, are you?" She looked up. A pale-haired boy with an unpleasantly thin face and exaggeratedly aristocratic features was standing next to her. "You _are_ pure-blooded, aren't you?" Before she could answer, he went on. "I'm Draco Malfoy. I and several others are starting an anti-Muggle campaign, a sort of petition against admitting too many Mudbloods to this school." Draco slipped a piece of paper to her.

Mizuki stared at the paper. It had some names signed on it already; she only recognized Pansy Parkinson's and Draco Malfoy's. Then she looked back up at the older boy. "In English, the ones that have no magic are Muggles, and the wizards that have no magic are Squibs. Am I correct?" She spoke softly, barely audible in the clamor of the feast.

He nodded smugly. "Exactly. Of course, it's going to be hard what with _that_—" he jerked his thumb at Dumbledore "—Muggle-loving old fool in charge of Hogwarts, but it's worth a try."

She raised an eyebrow very slightly. "Then I will have you know that one of my great-great-grandfathers was a Squib, and my father's mother was a Muggle."

Now Draco's superior attitude seemed more directed toward her. "Ah," he said smoothly. "Well, we all know that the Dark Lord was not fully pureblood himself. If you are willing to renounce your Muggle blood, then—"

"I have no intention of doing so," Mizuki replied in that soft voice, cutting him off and averting her face. It was a very obvious dismissal, and she actually felt like someone who dismissed people at their whim all the time when she said that. Draco turned slightly pinker than usual.

"If I were you, I'd be worried about ruining Slytherin's good name." His tone was warning, tinged with spite.

"But you are not me," she demurred, and turned her back on him. After picking through her food, she decided to have a little soup. _Soup_, she decided, _was a good choice._ For as she sipped at the steaming broth, she could watch everyone else talking. She could observe them, come to know them without speaking to them that way. And in a sense, she was spying on them as well, finding out what they might not have wanted her to find out. Not that they had much to worry about. Mizuki wasn't the type to tell everything she knew to the people around her, or even to her friends. When she had friends.

Mizuki found Dumbledore cheery and kind enough, but rather eccentric. Not pretentious and fake like the famous people she had read of. Still, it might have just been an extremely well put together false front. The woman who had let them inside the Great Hall—Professor McGonagall?—seemed fair, though quite stern, but she didn't mind strict teachers as long as they were fair. They were easy enough to deal with: don't cause a disturbance and you're fine. She doubted that the very small teacher sitting on a pile of cushions would be very good at controlling his pupils; his height alone weakened his status. Mizuki would have to be careful of other students while in his class. Hagrid, she remembered, was the enormous, bearded man who had led them up to the castle itself. He had the advantage of size, but from what she had seen of him already, he wasn't half firm enough with troublemakers.

The celebration progressed almost unbearably slowly. By the time Mizuki ran out of soup, everyone else was making their dessert vanish—without any wands. Staring down dully at the innumerable array of sweets, she finally selected a slice of apple pie. She took a tiny bite and grimaced mentally.

_Ugh. The British like their food so _sweet she thought, taking a sip of pumpkin juice. _I think I'll just have juice. _

The girl was actually a bit surprised when Dumbledore stood up at last, his silver beard glowing in the magical light, to announce, "Time is ripe to follow a much-beloved tradition: the Singing of the School Song." He beamed at them all, almost radiating happy vibes. "And a one, two, three..."

The headmaster of Hogwarts tapped his wand on nothing, and golden lyrics fell from it like a waterfall of words. Immediately, the entire school exploded in a cacophony of clashing tunes (the majority of them not even in tune) that battered Mizuki's eardrums mercilessly. High voices screeched against low; tearing-fast tarantella melodies whirled past _andante_ pieces. It was the sound of a thousand throats all screaming out a thousand different emotions, mixed in with a few jokers and the thin, reluctant whispers of a few teachers. Mizuki made no sound, but closed her eyes and waited for the deafening noise to end.

And the end came, bringing beautiful, glorious silence to the Great Hall. She relaxed and opened her eyes. Dumbledore smiled again, a genuine expression of contentment.

"True music comes from the heart," he remarked, making the song disappear with a sharp flick of his wand. "Now for bedtime: prefects, show the way." He sat down again.

"First-years! New scum!" a brutish-looking boy with more scars than a Roman soldier called, sweeping the Slytherin table with the briefest of glances before heading off, deep in conversation with the short, bristle-braided girl he had been talking to at dinner. He led them—or rather, they followed him—through endless corridors, up Everest-like stairs, and past countless doors. Mizuki, mingling effortlessly with the throng of people, noted that most of the first-years were trying to hide their huffing and puffing by the time they stopped. The prefect continued talking though, punctuating his conversation with the occasional snigger.

"Excuse me," said the Japanese girl, inserting just the right amount of sarcasm into her politeness. "And where are we to go from here on?"

The scar-ridden boy's attention flickered to her for a moment, distracted, then a second time, this time a half-horrified glare.

"_What did you say?_" he demanded angrily.

So she repeated herself. "Excuse me. And where are we to go from here on?"

The boy's eyes rolled up into his head as he searched for some way he could tell her off for saying that, but found nothing. So with a warning glower that promised trouble to come, he turned to the bleak stone wall and snapped, "Guardian's Pain."

An ominous grating sound rumbled from somewhere beyond the wall, and it buckled and split to reveal a high-ceilinged room containing a few stone tables and proportionally high-backed chairs. Tapestries depicting gory hunting scenes adorned the grim walls, and torches flickered in their gleaming iron sconces. A fire had been lit in the hearth, but it heated only so much of the room.

"Common room," the prefect told them shortly. "Boys to the left, girls to the right." He and the older Slytherins disappeared down yet another set of steps as the first-years climbed up. Mizuki found her trunk at the foot of one of the green-draped beds. Checking inside, she found everything still there. She did not go to sleep immediately as the others did; instead, she kept her curtains opened a crack and observed the nightgowned girls. Two of them were evidently best friends, Greta and Andrea. They chattered annoyingly about boys, magical makeup, and new robe shops even when they had drawn their drapes. It was mildly funny to hear their shrill voices floating from the covered beds. Another was squash-nosed and heavily muscled, with her thick hair cut like a boy's. She hadn't spoken to anyone yet. The girl next to her situated next to her was bristly-haired and short, though not quite as short as Mizuki. The latter was reminded quite strongly of the girl their prefect had been talking to. As she probed the gloom in an attempt to see who was to her left, a sharp voice pierced the darkness:

"Mind your own business." A rippling in the cloth surrounding her neighbor's bed indicated that it was being pulled more tightly around. Mizuki shrugged, unseen, and diverted her attention to the sixth girl. She turned out to have waves of gold coasting down her back and eyes bluer than the sky, incredibly long frosty lashes, and lips as red as rubies. However, the gold was a little too gold, the blue a little too intense, the long lashes unnaturally so, and the red glistened strangely in the spare light of candles. Mizuki suspected that it was all achieved with Muggle tricks if not wizardly spells and potions.

Her last thought before finally letting herself fall asleep was, _How pointless._


End file.
